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The next chapter coming to Dead by Daylight has a unique theme compared to the previous entries created by the horror-centric development team at Behaviour Interactive. The team finds horror in the stars and looks to the future as they bring a killer AI that takes its programming too far and begins to go after the crew it was designed to help build a home, known as the Singularity.

The lone survivor of the crew is Gabriel Soma, and theyre both being pulled into the fog, with the Singularity eager to hunt after Survivors to appease the entity, and Gabriel, only wanting to survive, make it back home. These two join Dead by Daylight in Chapter 29, End Transmission.

The information comes directly from Behavior Interactive from their 7th Anniversary stream, celebrating seven years of Dead by Daylight and sharing it with the community. We caught a brief trailer of The Singularitys egg-like power in effect, attaching itself to Gabriel as he desperately attempts to fix a generator.

The team has also confirmed that End Transmission will arrive on June 13, 2023, and will go on sale for every player. The pack will contain The Singularity and Gabriel, and players can use them on the first day.

Unfortunately, following the conclusion of the 7th Anniversary stream, these two will not be making an appearance on Dead by Daylights Public Test Servers as initially planned. Due to the massive leaks that happened surrounding Behaviour Interactives 7th Anniversary stream, which also caused the team to formally announce the arrival of future Survivor Nicolas Cage, the team decided to host their Anniversary today rather than on May 23, 2023, as it was originally unintended, which is when The Singularity and Gabriel will become playable for all players on the Public Test Servers.

On top of the End Transmission, we can expect to see Slipknot and Iron Maiden-themed collections making their way to the game. So far, these have only been confirmed, and we cannot go into too many details about this, but we do know its happening, and were keen to see what Survivors and Killers are chosen as highlights for this collection.

Were looking forward to trying out Gabriel and Singularity and seeing how they mix things up as they propel into the fog of Dead by Daylight.

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Dead by Daylight Embraces Sci-Fi Horror with Chapter Update, End ... - msnNOW

By James Garner 2023-05-19T06:00:00

Artificial intelligence is advancing fast and this is our Blockbuster video moment. Our industry has the resources to create a brighter future for our clients, our businesses and the world at large, says James Garner

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The futurist Ray Kurzweil made an important prediction in his ground-breaking book The Singularity is Near. According to his forecasts, artificial intelligence (AI) would overtake human intelligence by 2045 and create rapid technological advancement.

Although this bold prediction was met with disbelief by many, recent advances in AI and technology have made reaching the singularity even sooner a very real possibility.

Reflecting on my career journey at Gleeds, where I started as a quantity surveyor and am now the head of data and intelligence,I have witnessed the accelerated pace of change in recent years first-hand.Thistransformation has not been a mere tweak; it has been an eye-opening experience that has fundamentally shifted the way I perceive our profession.

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We must collaborate to safeguard construction from 'big tech ... - Building

Sci-fi horror is all the rage these days, with Scorn, SIGNALIS, The Callisto Protocol and the upcoming Greyhill Incident all capitalizing on the voguish trend. Even Dead Space (a franchise that was driven into the ground by its own publisher and forced into complete dormancy for almost a decade) has managed to make itself relevant again.

Always with its finger on the pulse, Dead by Daylight is looking to get in on the action next with its Chapter 28 DLC. This imminent expansion which is scheduled for release on DbDs copper anniversary will see the multiplayer game take to the stars and promises to really shake things up with fresh content thats unlike anything theyve ever done before.

And what better way is there to celebrate 7 years of asymmetrical bloodshed than to go intergalactic? After all, crossing that final frontier is pretty much the crowing achievement of any slasher franchise that has legs.

If you can keep the money rolling in for long enough, then you eventually get to go to space. Those are just the rules. It was only a matter of time then, before Dead by Daylight followed in the footsteps of Hellraiser, Friday the 13th and Leprechaun before it and ditched the confines of Planet Earth.

Bringing a lot to the table, Chapter 28 will introduce an original map, an additional survivor and a totally unique killer. To learn more about whats waiting for us in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, we attended a recent press conference hosted by developer Behaviour Interactive.

Here, we gained a deeper insight into the DLCs alien environments and discovered what makes the new Singularity character such a distinctly menacing opponent.

The Year Ahead

Before we got stuck into Chapter 28 (titled End Transmission), we were walked through the content roadmap for the next twelve months.

Fans will be pleased to hear that they are going to be treated to a whopping six major updates this year, the first of which is obviously End Transmission.

After this, there will then be three more fully-fledged chapters (adding both licenced and original characters to the roster), as well as two smaller updates that are billed as survivor-only DLCs.

In terms of chronology, the breakdown for 2023/24 is as follows:

Alongside all of this, various quality- of-life improvements will also be rolled out throughout the year.

An anti-camping system will be implemented to promote good sportsmanship and to discourage cheap tactics, while a new search-bar function will enable players to navigate their sprawling inventories with greater ease.

Most exciting of all, however, is the introduction of survivor disconnect bots. Swooping in whenever a sore loser rage quits or somebody encounters crippling network issues, these A.I.-controlled teammates will fill the vacancy left behind. They might not be flawless substitutes for your fellow human players, but they will at least ensure that matches can continue in some form if the lobby starts to dwindle for whatever reason.

The Perfect Lifeform

Speaking of Artificial Intelligence and the implications of it one day replacing us it turns out that this will actually be the main theme of the latest DLC.

While many in the DbD community were understandably hoping for an Alien chapter (with a playable Xenomorph), the games first foray into sci-fi horror is a wholly original affair instead. That being said, the ideas that it will be tapping into ought to be instantly familiar to anyone whose seen movies like The Terminator, Westworld or Richard Stanleys Hardware.

Set in the distant future, the basic premise of End Transmission is that a group of human settlers have arrived on a strange, exotic world. Hoping to colonise it for the sake of mankind, they dispatch a state-of-the-art A.I. to scout out this foreign terrain and identify any potential hazards.

Unfortunately, the servile android ends up learning a little too much on its reconnaissance mission and starts to wonder why it should be taking orders from these fragile meatbags in the first place. No prizes for guessing what happens next.

As A.I. is wont to do, the machine inevitably comes to the conclusion that humans are just a waste of oxygen and decides to overthrow its masters, picking them off one by one. By the time the DLC opens, this purge is nearing completion and only a single member of the crew is still breathing.

The ensuing confrontation between Gabriel Soma (the chapters new survivor) and The Singularity (the chapters new killer) forms the central crux of End Transmission. A teaser trailer sets the adversarial dynamic up nicely, pairing cinematic footage with some Kyle Reese-esque narration from Gabriel.

As he dashes through an alien rainforest, the terrified astro-engineer lays out everything that you need to know about his cybernetic tormenter: It became self-aware. It has no empathy. It doesnt feel pain. It learns at an impossible rate and it wont stop until we are dead. Or worse.

If you are wondering what fate he could possibly be alluding to here thats worse than being hacked to pieces by a homicidal robot, Dead by Daylights Creative Director, Dave Richard, was able to clear things up. Speaking about The Singularitys ghoulish M.O., he said: While it was scouting for potential dangers on this uncharted world, [The Singularity] made contact with old alien technology and was subsequently enlightened.

Having had a profound revelation of some kind, it now single-mindedly strives to grow and amass even more power. It does this by assimilating other pieces of machinery as well as organic material, in the hope that it will eventually become the perfect lifeform.

Richard continued: This killer is an interesting take on the idea of a cyborg. Were used to seeing human characters [augment] themselves with technology in science fiction, but The Singularity is doing everything in reverse. Its a piece of software thats decided to fuse with human flesh in order to increase its strength and mobility. Its on a quest to assimilate every living being in the universe.

The end result is a grotesque amalgamation of synthetic components and viscera. On the subject of its appearance, youre never going to have an iteration of The Singularity thats entirely pure (one way or the other), but you will be able to modify its look through various cosmetic options.

According to Richard, there will be different skins to choose from here, with some emphasising the more robotic qualities of the killer, while others suggest that it is being slowly mutated by the planets eerie flora and fauna.

As for how it plays, The Singularity has the ability to deploy gelatinous sacs around the environment. Known as bio-pods, these can stick to almost any surface and are used as a kind of body-horror version of CCTV.

Richard explained: They allow the killer to project its consciousness elsewhere. By strategically placing these pods, [Singularity players] can spy on survivors and even spew projectiles at them. We call that last part The Slipstream Effect. When a survivor is hit with a Slipstream, The Singularity can then teleport to their location and immediately attack.

To [counterbalance] this, survivors will have access to a brand-new special item; the EMP. This will be peppered in chests around the map whenever you face off against The Singularity and can temporarily disable its bio-pods and even [negate] the Slipstream Effect.

A Long Way From Home

Alongside the killer and survivor characters, End Transmission will also introduce a new arena into Dead by Daylights map rotation. That being the aforementioned jungle planet where Gabriels and his crewmates sealed their collective fates.

Describing this inhospitable environment, Richard said: Toba Landing is an obscure and foreign place. Its dangerous flora, fauna and structure are unlike anything that can be found on Earth. So it will be very different for our players.

There were several big themes that we wanted to explore when designing this realm. First of all, it was important that its clearly an alien world. We wanted the player to feel as though they are far from home and lost in space.

Elaborating upon how they pulled off this vibe, he continued: We took inspiration from the weirdest things that we could find in real-world nature and then modified them further to make it all feel even less familiar. We also added hints of a long-lost alien civilisation throughout, as a reminder that even powerful civilisations like ours can disappear and be forgotten.

Rest assured that there will be some recognisable elements in Toba Landing, however, as Richard confirmed that all of the staple Dead by Daylight assets will remain intact. He clarified: Our lore permits that palettes, hooks and generators can all exist within this futuristic sci-fi universe.

The Entity creates them so that they can be distributed across all of the different Omniverse realms for its trials. So those things do look the same for gameplay purposes. That way players can quickly identify them and get on with the match.

END TRANSMISSION will be coming to Dead by Daylight on the 13th of June and will be available on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.

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The recent proliferation of generative AI modelswhich are now being used to produce online search results, make art, help with customer service calls, and much morehas heightened fears of technological unemployment. Though AI is ultimately likely to create more jobs than it renders obsolete, it will indeed render some obsolete, and it seems that among these will be fast food drive-through operators.

Last week, Wendys and Google Cloud announced that the fast food chain will be piloting a custom-designed AI for drive-through food ordering. Wendys FreshAI, as the technologys been dubbed, will reportedly give drive-through customers a better ordering experience by reducing miscommunications and errors. Since customers can tweak the restaurants offerings to their likinghold the mustard, pile on some extra pickles, take out the onion and sub in more lettucethe order combinations are endless, and the companies believe an algorithm can do a better job of keeping it all straight than a human can.

The partnership between Wendys and Google isnt new. The companies started collaborating in 2021, when the fast food chain started using Google Clouds data analytics, AI, and hybrid cloud tools for mobile ordering and other convenient ways for customers to access the brand.

Their new agreement entails an order-taking, question-answering chatbot. Wendys says 75 to 80 percent of its orders come from drive-throughs, so the bot better know its stuff. Like OpenAIs ChatGPT and Googles LaMDA, the tool is a large language model (LLM), a type of deep learning algorithm trained on large datasets (as large as the entire internet, in some cases) to learn the relationships between words and the probability of different words preceding or following one another in a sentence. LLMs establish parameters that allow them to generate text based on promptsor, in the case of ChatGPT and Wendys FreshAI, respond to questions from users in a human-like way in real time.

Wendys FreshAI was trained on data from Wendys menu, the chains business rules, and basic conversation logic. It will be able to have conversations with customers and answer their questions, as well as confirming their orders on a screen and relaying them to the cooks inside.

It will be very conversational, Wendys CEO, Todd Penegor, told the Wall Street Journal. You wont know youre talking to anybody but an employee.

The chains chief information officer, Kevin Vasconi, gave the AI an even heartier endorsement, saying, Its at least as good as our best customer service representative, and its probably on average better.

The algorithm was trained to answer frequently asked questions, so it could be interesting (and entertaining) to hear what it comes up with in response to not-so-frequently-asked questions. The AI will doubtless have some perplexing late-night interactions with hungry, impatient, and inebriated customers who just want to dip their fries in a chocolate milkshake (or as Wendys calls it, a Frosty). In fact, Penegor said the chain plans to expand its hours and lean into late night.

Google has likely built some hefty guardrails into the chatbot to keep it from saying anything untoward, but even so, its rollout will be gradual. It will first launch at a couple of restaurants near Columbus, Ohio next month; if that goes well, it will expand to other locations. The pilot restaurants will have a human employee on hand to monitor the AI and take over and talk to drive-through customers if needed.

Besides making the ordering experience better for customers, the AI is meant to take some work off employees hands and free them up to focus on making food and keeping the restaurants running smoothly. It could also be extra good for Wendys bottom line (and bad for customers waistlines) in that its programmed to try to upsell people, offering them larger sizes, daily specials, and desserts.

Wendys isnt the first fast food chain to integrate AI into its ordering process. Popeyes, McDonalds, Carls Jr., Hardees, Taco Bell, and Wingstop have all experimented with AI order-taking in drive-throughs or over the phone. A Popeyes in Louisiana reported that after starting to use a chatbot called Tori for drive-through orders, speed of service increased by 20 percent, drink sales went up by 150 percent, and customer satisfaction improved by 20 percentall with 99.9 percent accuracy in order-taking.

Could Wendys see similar results? Well find out, but it seems entirely possible that they willand that people conversing with algorithms will be the most normal of everyday experiences in the not-too-distant future.

Image Credit: Michael Form / Pixabay

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A Google AI Chatbot May Soon Take Your Drive-Through Food ... - Singularity Hub

(May 17, 2023 / JNS) For many years, I have spent Friday mornings reading through a stack of newspapers reflecting a wide spectrum of editorial positions in Israel.It used to be amusing to count the differences in news coverage between them, as if each newspaper came from a slightly alternate reality.Recently, however, these differences have grown into chasms of ill will, cynicism and dehumanization of the other, making it difficult to understand how all streams of Israeli society might continue living together. This problem is not unique to Israelmore than ever, polarization plagues societies throughout the worldyet in Israel, it seems that this development threatens our very existence.

Polarization is the greatest problem facing Israeli society today.Despite our multi-party tradition, in recent years Israeli political society has succumbed increasingly to demonization of the other.The current governmental embrace of extreme parties, opinions and policies that until now have been taboo in Israel has provoked horror and alienation, as well as suspicion of anything that reflects the Jewish character of the state on the left.

Fortunately, our Jewish tradition provides us with an approach to resist and overcome the grave dangers of polarization, one that is particularly resonant as we approach the holiday of Shavuot.The key, I believe, is to replace binary identities with multiple identities and to recognize that all of these identities, while they may compete, ultimately also serve a singular purpose.

The balance between singularity and plurality can be traced to Sinai.The Midrash relates that at the moment of revelation:

When the Blessed Holy One was revealed on Mount Sinai, twenty-two myriads of angels descended with God. Once Israel saw them composed of flags and flags, they themselves started desiring flags. They declared, My God, we want to have flags like them. Bamidbar Rabbah 2:3

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Like a small child at the Grand Canyon enthralled by a bug or a small rock, when God appeared to the Israelites at Sinai in that moment of direct revelation and they heard Gods voice face to face in the mountain out of the midst of the fire (Deuteronomy 5:5), their attention was actually drawn to the colorful flags that angels were waving.

According to the Midrash, rather than becoming frustrated by our lack of attention, the Blessed Holy One grants our request: The Blessed Holy One said, Just as you have desired to make flags, on your life, I will fulfill your request, as it says God will fulfill all of your requests (Psalm 20:6).

Flags have played a central role in our current conflict, sometimes in a weaponized form.Flags are a stand-in for identity.Angels descend to accomplish a single mission (GR 50:2 and Rashi Genesis 18:2).To wave a flag is to know precisely whose team we are on and what our mission is in the world.

Each of the tens of thousands of angels was waving their own flag, and yet what characterized us at Sinai was unity and singularitywe were like a single individual with a single heart (Rashi).

This apparent tension between plurality and singularity is resolved in the opening of the book of Numbers in which the Israelite encampment is described: each individual on his flag according to their family (Numbers 2:2).Each tribe, like any modern army, has its own flag, fight song, and skill set.There may be rivalry and competition between the units, but never polarization.All of the flags are carefully arranged around our shared core missionthe tabernacle holding the holy ark, which emblemizes the recreation of Sinai and the continued Divine presence among the Israelites.

As we begin to read the book of Numbers and immediately afterwards celebrate the revelation at Sinai, we would do well to remember that just as each flag in the desert represented a distinct and critical aspect of the overall mission in the journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land, so, too, do each of our tribal voices play an essential role in sustaining Israel and protecting the singular mission that resides at its core. Our multiple identities compete with but must also complement one another in order to help us resist polarization and work together, each of us with a unique and necessary mission.

Our current world has succumbed to centrifugal forcethe magnets are pulling us to the extremes, causing us to experience our identities as binary rather than complex, as us vs. them, as threatening rather than mutually enriching.We feel it in our world, we feel it in our country, and I feel it in my work at Pardesan institute that brings Jews together from across the religious spectrum to learn from the Torah and one another.Resisting that pull is incredibly challenging on a national and a personal level.However, our diversity is our great strength.Rather than pull to the extremes, we must amplify the centripetal force, center ourselves symbolically around the ark, and see our critical identities as contributing to the whole, united around a central mission.May we use this season as an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to that task.

Rabbi Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy is director of the year program at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. The opinions expressed here are hers alone.

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